How Far Does $100 Actually Go at the Airport?
PHOENIX—Unless it’s an early-morning caffeine emergency or vacation mimosa, I’d sooner board last than spring for snacks and drinks at the airport. Yet there I was on Sunday, wearing out the company credit card at shops and restaurants for a few hours at Sky Harbor International Airport. My mission: See how far $100 would go in an era of high inflation and daily social-media posts on outrageous airport prices.
That’s a deceptively complicated task in a place where the same two bottles of water cost $5 in one spot and $8 down the hall. New York Times columnist David Brooks went viral in September for lamenting his $78 meal at Newark’s airport. The restaurant got the last laugh: His burger and fries cost $17.78 and the rest of the bill was booze.
It launched a $17.78 special, including liquor, in his name at its Trenton, N.J., location. (Brooks later told PBS that the tweet was “insensitive" and that he shouldn’t have written it.) Airport sticker shock has existed as long as baggage carousels. Airport authorities across the country have tried to keep prices in check by mandating prices roughly in line with those outside the airport, a practice called street pricing.
That price gap between a bag of cool ranch Doritos in your neighborhood and at the terminal has widened at many airports. Major concessionaires have successfully argued that airport prices should be higher because it costs more to run businesses in airports, from rent to labor. Today, nearly 80% of major airports charge above street pricing, a practice called street-plus, according to a 2023 survey by trade group Airports Council International-North America.
In Los Angeles, the figure is street plus 18%. Kansas City, plus 15%. In the New York area, LaGuardia,
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